Home-cooked Meals Losing Place At The Dinner Table

Increasingly pressed for time, Americans are now spending more than half their food budget on takeout and restaurant food, according to the president of the National Restaurant Association.

In a trend that's been gathering speed for 20 years, restaurants have now become the primary source for the evening meal for most Americans, said Herman Cain, the association's outgoing president and chairman of Omaha-based Godfather's Pizza.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spent $39.1 billion in March on food that was taken away and consumed, while $37.9 billion was spent on food that was prepared and eaten at home.

Since 1995, when 44 percent of the food dollar was being spent on food away from home, the amount of money spent on prepared food taken away from a restaurant or grocery store deli has been growing at a 4.3 percent annual clip, while food bought for home preparation and consumption has been growing at about 3.5 percent.

"The more lifestyles continue to accelerate and the more we as an industry provide high quality with good-value offerings throughout the industry, the more people are going to spend their food dollar away from home," Cain said during an interview at Chicago's McCormick Place while attending the Restaurant Association's annual trade show.

Within 10 years, the industry estimates that consumers will spend more than 53 percent of every food dollar on meals, snacks and beverages away from home, compared with 25 percent in 1955.

"Without question, the restaurant of the future will be busier, more high-tech and do a brisker business in takeout and delivery than restaurants today," said Hudson Riehle, senior director of research for the association.

By 2010, many restaurants will provide "separate sections of the restaurant dedicated solely to take out and delivery," Riehle predicted.

Long considered a mature industry, the nation's grocery stores are now helping drive higher the amount of money consumers are spending on takeout food, Cain said.

"Supermarkets have been more and more getting into what they call home-meal replacement. We've been in the home-meal replacement business since the first restaurant opened," Cain said.

"They think they are creating something new when, in reality, they are just getting into the restaurant business."

The Restaurant Association is holding its 80th annual Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show through Tuesday at McCormick Place. The restaurant industry accounts for $354 billion in annual sales and is the nation's largest private-sector employer.

While the restaurant of the future will be increasingly

dealing with takeout and delivery, the restaurant of today is struggling to attract workers in an increasingly tight labor market.

"A low national unemployment rate is a two-edged sword. As more people are employed, it makes it harder to hire people to start at the least level or skill in a restaurant," said Cain, noting that restaurants hire the most people with the fewest skills and least education of any private-sector industry.

Cain also acknowledged that restaurant prices are rising faster than overall inflation, principally because of the increasing costs of labor.